


Of white-plumed birds under bright-warm skies

by Etalice



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A story in three tableaux, Angst, Character Study, Death, F/M, Terminal Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 12:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20082418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etalice/pseuds/Etalice
Summary: It is summer, the first time Astoria visits Malfoy Manor. The shade of the large horse-chestnut trees washes, water-cool and towel-soft, on Astoria’s skin as her mother carries her across the lawn and towards a white garden table adorned with fine china tea-cups and tiny cakes. Astoria rests her plump, rosy cheek on her mother’s delicate shoulder, inhaling the soothing smells of lavender and jasmine, of rice-powder and amber. She is young then, too young to know or understand blood-curses or lifespans; it is a time when summer days can still stretch, sticky-hot and toffee-long, for entire weeks or years.A history of Astoria in three tableaux.





	Of white-plumed birds under bright-warm skies

It is summer, the first time Astoria visits Malfoy Manor. The shade of the large horse-chestnut trees washes, water-cool and towel-soft, on Astoria’s skin as her mother carries her across the lawn and towards a white garden table adorned with fine china tea-cups and tiny cakes. Astoria rests her plump, rosy cheek on her mother’s delicate shoulder, inhaling the soothing smells of lavender and jasmine, of rice-powder and amber. She is young then, too young to know or understand blood-curses or lifespans; it is a time when summer days can still stretch, sticky-hot and toffee-long, for entire weeks or years.

Her mother sets her down on the lawn, a steady, soft hand still flat against her small back. “This is Draco Malfoy, say hello” she instructs, pushing Astoria slightly towards a little boy, an older boy, blond and delicate like her sister’s china dolls, and actively ignoring her. 

She’s laid down on the white blanket that’s been spread out for her on the rust-coloured leaves at the foot of the tree and watches small rays sunlight dancing through the leaves as she nibbles on a pink boudoir biscuit, something fancy that Narcissa brought back from France. Astoria’s mother is sat in a white garden chair, her rice-powder fingers curling around fine tea-cups and tiny silver spoons, and every so often, her laughter tumbles down, like pearls from a broken strand. 

Astoria is content, here, in this cool-shade haze of biscuits and blankets, of laughter and sunlight, and the entire afternoon could be just that, the lazy drip of honey-warm minutes in an hourglass, but it is not because just as Astoria’s eyelids grow heavy, a tickle-soft weight settles down on her bare legs. Astoria opens her eyes: it is one of the large white bird that has been pecking at the lawn. It is resting its feather-crested head on her lap, its long, ivory tail spread out on the ground behind it. Astoria lifts her small hand and lets it run along the neck of the bird, along its back and its wings; the feathers feel soft and smooth under her palm. She giggles quietly.

“They’re albino peacocks, you know,” the boy suddenly says. He’s come down from the chair he was sitting on and is now crouching next to her. “Father had them brought from Moldova.”

Astoria turns to look at the boy. The words seem bitter like willow-bark on his tongue, and his small face twists around them in a grimace. She rests her hand on the white feathers of the bird. She doesn’t say anything.

“They’re very expensive,” the boy continues, “but you wouldn’t know that. You’re much too small to know about money. I also didn’t know about money when I was your age, but I do now and that’s how I know they’re very expensive.”

Astoria doesn’t understand the words the boy is using, and she doesn’t very much care to ask any questions. She rests her cheek on the bird and ignores him.

“They only like me,” the boy’s voice shakes with anger or frustration and there are tears hiding behind the words. “They don’t like it when other people can’t touch them. They only like it when it’s me because Father gave them to me and I am their master.” The boy is stomping the ground with his foot, his small fists tightly screwed; he is speaking the words as if they could somehow make the bird not like Astoria anymore. Astoria decides once again that she does not like him at all and hugs the large bird with her child-fat arms.

The grown-up swoop in before the situation can escalate any further. Astoria is picked up, her eyelet cotton dress firmly dusted, her little white leather shoes and socks retrieved from the blanket and put on her feet, her brown locks brushed away from her face. The boy is not there when Astoria leaves the Manor, doubtlessly sulking in his room after his mother grabbed his arm and whispered sharp words in his ear. Astoria doesn’t mind. That night, she dreams of white-plumed birds under bright-warm skies.

* * *

Astoria comes back to the Manor after the war, bone-tired and fear-worn. “Poor Narcissa”, her mother said. And: “I must help her.” And: “She really should not be alone in those trying times”. (She did not say: why, and with what, and how the war seeped into her skin and bore holes through her bones until she wore her face like a mask to hide the stains of tar-black dread.)

Astoria does not go inside. The walls are still dripping with war, the blood-curdling cries of the dead are still soaking the very structure of the house. From the putrid riverside pebbles of limestone walls to the rotting driftwood ceiling, to the waterlogged marsh-ground of the marble floor, everything is damp with death and deadly, deadly, deadly. (Astoria has trouble enough staying alive without drowning in it all.)

Astoria does not go inside, instead, she wanders the ground, aimless and broken, the golden shards of childhood cutting bone-deep into her feet (the ground is littered with them here, the kind that smells of rice-powder and summer, of tea and sugar-crisp pink biscuits.) It hurts, everything still looking the same when it all should be charred and blackened and burned, when it all should be crumbling and broken and ruined (because everything that matters is, and the knowledge of it sits sharp and heavy, between her lungs, like a pincushion.)

But still: The same lawn, tickle-soft and green. The same trees, proudly holding up their green branches to the wind. The same summer sky, china-blue and cotton-clouded. Only the birds have the decency to show their grief on the outside, wearing charred feather and soot stains black as mourning bands. Astoria lets them come to her, lets them set their small heads in her lap and peck at her old dress. They’re like her, hurt and out of place, meant for luxury and thrown onto a battleground. With her fingers on their soft, cool feathers, she finds she can breathe a little better.

“They always did like you.”

Draco’s face is a canvas painted ash grey and cadmium-white by grief and fear, the watercolour stain of periwinkle-blue exhaustion bleeding into the steel of his eyes. Astoria doesn’t smile; she’s forgotten how to when she was fifteen and she thought she’d die within the walls of Hogwarts, without seeing her parents again. (When she was eleven and she was told that her blood was filled with knives, her lungs with sulphur and that, one day, her own body would turn against her.)

“They’re hurt,” she says instead.

“We’re all hurt. Some wounds are just easier to see than others. My mother refuses to speak a single word. There are still teeth planted between the blades of grass, and blood on the bark of the horse-chestnut trees, and bones buried in the hydrangea bushes. Nothing is the same anymore.”

Draco’s eyes are solemn and storm grey as he speaks. (It is Astoria’s favourite colour.)

“Do you ever feel broken beyond repair,” she asks, in a whisper because her heart is sitting, swollen and heavy, on her vocal cords, “do you ever wonder if it’s even worth trying to piece yourself back together at all?”

Draco takes a deep breath. Bites his lip. Closes his eyes. Lets out a heavy sigh.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

Astoria starts crying in earnest after that. Draco doesn’t wipe the tears off her cheeks, doesn’t erase her grief from her face (but he takes her hand, and he lets the ocean-salt of his own grief fall on her skin too.) They talk when the sobs finally move out of their throats and back into their lungs and hearts. They talk of horse-chestnut trees and fiendfyre. Of the gaping-black loneliness behind their ribs. Of surviving loss-stained summers. Of walking towards grief-blurred tomorrows.

When they part, with promises of meetings and letters, Astoria feels a little less alone. A little less lost. A little less broken.

* * *

Scorpius is curled heavy-warm against Astoria’s side, his breath slow and rhythmic in his sleep. From the window, she can see the vast sandy expanses of the _Baie de Somme _glistening under the evening sun. She loves it here, loves the way the sky kisses the earth, loves the way the water caresses the sands with the ebb and flow of the tides. This is where she’s chosen to die.

They came here before Scorpius was born. She walked bare-feet on that sand. Draco picked her marsh samphire that exploded salty-crisp between her teeth and made her laugh in delight. She stuck the delicate lace blossoms of sea lavender in her hair, secretly crowning herself queen of sea, or silence, or solitude.

They came with Scorpius too, and she held his little hand as he giggled and screeched, stomping at the waves when they licked the soft skin of his toes. She marvelled at his plump face twisting in all sorts of grimaces as Draco made him taste crab-flesh and mussels, whelk and sea aster. She did not think about the knives in her blood, then, about her time-bomb heart softly ticking beneath her skin. She was happy.

She does not regret it.

She hopes Draco will teach Scorpius to swim here, one day. She hopes Draco will watch Scorpius on the beach from the balcony of their beach house, playing with a dog, perhaps. She hopes they will have a dog. She hopes it will be white like the birds were at the Manor.

Her eyes close.

She hears Draco calling her name. She hopes he’ll say her name again when she’s gone. She hopes he’ll tell Scorpius about how she loved the sea lavender and walking bare-feet on the sand. She hopes Scorpius will let marsh samphire burst in salt-fireworks beneath his tongue, just the way she did here.

“I love you,” she whispers. She feels Draco holding her hand like he once did, on the grounds of a ruined Manor, but there is no strength in her fingers anymore, she can feel her treacherous blood starting to turn to dust there, just there, underneath the skin and fingernails. Against her skin, she feels the warm ghost of Draco’s kiss, the wetness of his cheeks. She breathes it in, one last time.

“I’ll always love you,” she whispers again, “I’ll tell the peacocks you said hello.”

And then: all is dark.


End file.
